


What Makes a Man

by Captains_Orders



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angela helps, F/M, Gabe makes a cameo, Genji suffers from mild cyborg dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, adjustment, light gency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8097901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captains_Orders/pseuds/Captains_Orders
Summary: Doctor Angela Ziegler's greatest medical success is also the patient who struggles the most. It's in her nature to offer whatever comfort she can.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I said I wouldn't write for this fandom and look where I am. I had this in my head because I'm very emotional about Genji and what he went through and I'm trash fro this ship. I wasn't sure which perspective I wanted to write this in but Angela came to me first so maybe I'll do a Genji's pov one day but I do like this.  
> Unbetad as always oops

It had been a long day, her paperwork seemed infinite, and she’d had several patients to attend to with varying but equally obscure injuries that occupied whatever else had remained of her time. Angela Ziegler was tired and in desperate need of a meal that took more than three bites to consume. For all her griping about healthy diets and balanced food groups and here she was eating granola for most of the day. She shook her head and chuckled softly to herself as she made her way through the halls towards the kitchen. A crash brought her out of her musings, head wiping around towards the sound and heart dropping when she realized the source. Brisk steps took her to the door and she barely resisted pressing her ear against the metal in hopes of hearing more, but the other side was silent. Most rooms on the base were soundproof with the exception of this section, the outpatient wing kept private but also accessible in case of emergencies. Angela hoped it wasn't such an emergency. She knocked softly, keeping her worry in check.

“Genji?” There was no response. “Genji are you alright?” Still nothing, but she pushed down the rising knot of panic. “Genji if you don’t answer I’m coming in.” Silence once more, she exhaled and pressed her hand against the keypad. The door was unlocked, and while she wouldn’t normally take that for an invitation, she felt the circumstances were a good exception. 

“I am sorry to intrude,” she began, taking her first steps into the room. “I heard a crash and,” she paused, taking in the sparse space with carefully concealed surprise. Shards of glass from the old mirror, a customary feature in every room, lay scattered across the floor, along with a broken vase and other debris. Amidst it all stood Genji, the pistons in his shoulders venting hard. 

“Genji, what happened?” Malfunctions in cybernetics were rare, especially so long after installation, but the room was all but destroyed and his stillness was alarming. He let out a dry chuckle, the sound rasping through the enhancements that had to be placed along his throat. 

“Is it not obvious?” Finally he turned towards her, meeting her eyes with his own, his visor discarded carelessly somewhere in the mess of his quarters.

“I have learned not to presume,” she replied. Genji turned away from her with a sigh. There had been countless patients thrust into Angela’s care from the moment she had been recruited into Overwatch, but none stood out quite like Genji. A young man on the verge of death and she had saved him, her greatest success to date, and yet looking at him now, at his obvious distress, she felt no pride for her achievements. 

“I am grateful that you saved my life,” he paused for a moment, looking so lost, “but this…” There was that shaking again. Metal fingers curled to fists at his sides and then like a viper they struck out, denting the small table beneath the mirror viciously. He lifted his hand staring at it for a long moment, fingers flexing against his palm. “What do you see when you look at me?” His voice was quite verging on broken, afraid of her answer maybe. It was not hard to figure out the true meaning of his question, not so soon after the omnic crisis.

“I see a man,” she replied and he scoffed, turning back to face her with a dark and pained look on his face. 

“I am a monster,” he snapped, averting his gaze down in shame almost instantly.

Something came to her then, a conversation she had when Genji was first delivered to her care. Commander Reyes was an intimidating man who she saw rarely, she was under Commander Morrison’s jurisdiction, his ‘pet project’ as Reyes would say, and as such she had little interaction with Blackwatch and its members. He had passed her in the hall on the way to the medical wing, and she was still unsure as to why he had been there in the first place. She’d greeted him with a polite quickness, but he paused just long enough for her to catch his reply.

“Go on, Frankenstein, play god.” It stuck with her, haunted her all through Genji’s long reconstruction surgery, and came back now as she looked at him so clearly struggling before her. 

A single step forward to test the waters and then she closed the distance between him, reaching for his still twitching hand and taking it gently. 

“You are not a monster, Genji,” she said, guiding his hand and pressing it against his chest. If he listened he would hear the telltale beat of a very human heart thumping away beneath the all the metal and carbon fiber. “You still have a heart, your heart.” He was finally looking at her and she held his wide eyed gaze with a piercing look of her own. “As long as you have that, and as long as you know yourself, you will never be a machine. You are a man, nothing I have done can change that, only you get to decide.” With that she released his hand, but noticed that he kept it cradled against him, as if holding on to the truth of her words.

Genji said nothing, but seemed relaxed almost as he watched her. Smoothing the front of her lab coat Angela nodded and made to leave. 

“Thank you.” She was halfway out the door when his voice, almost quiet, made her pause. “Thank you, Doctor Ziegler,” he finished, shifting awkwardly as he averted his eyes. Uncomfortable perhaps with his earlier outburst.

“Angela is fine,” she replied with a kind smile, his nervous gratitude almost endearing.

“Thank you… Angela.” 

She replied with a nod and a smile, unsure of what to say.

“Angela,” he said softly as she slipped out the door as if testing the shape of her name. 

He would adjust, she thought as she continued down the hall, she was sure of that now.


End file.
